With the sound of music in the background from the ETHS block party and the scattered showers of rain, the Kits took on Jones for the second game of the Evanston Tournament on Thursday night. Coming off a win in the first round, the Kits hoped to continue this winning streak. They successfully defeated Jones 2-0 and advanced to the third and final round of the tournament.
Right at the whistle the crowd knew the Kits wanted an early lead. Senior Joseph Sargent immediately drove up the line supplying a crisp pass to senior Johnny Hunwick who fired a shot toward the net but was denied by the goalkeeper. Evanston continued to push the ball to the goal and Sargent obtained many offensive opportunities but couldn’t capitalize.
“I don’t think we played great. It was a slow start, we definitely weren’t connecting the way we wanted to. I think we shaped it up towards the end with our intensity because we knew we needed to win this,” senior Finn Lennon said.
The Kits maintained possession throughout the game but failed to get the ball in the back of the net. When the whistle blew for the first half Evanston couldn’t get a successful play to put them on the board.
“Our whole point is to keep the ball so that they can’t score and to keep the ball with the purpose of opening angles up and taking them with our speed,” head coach Franz Calixte stated. “We were doing that well, it’s just that final element of scoring was not great.”
Jones took the kick-off of the second half but quickly turned the ball over to Evanston where senior George Lewis took a shot but got denied by the keeper. Evanston had an early chance to score on an assist from Hunwick to Sargent but the goal failed to count due to an offsides penalty. Despite this disappointing call, the Kits returned in the 35th minute with an easy goal in the corner from Sargent and an assist from Hunwick.
Evanston’s possession failed to give Jones any offensive opportunity. Jones couldn’t seem to beat Evanston’s defensive line as Evanston keeper junior Finn Kramer-Mann wasn’t shot on once.
“We kept a solid back line. We kept our stability and were able to build out the back majority of the time,” said Lennon.
To secure the win, Sargent had yet another chance but it got deflected by the Jones’ keeper. Fortunately for Evanston, senior Kervenson Alfred was able to rebound this deflection and give the Kits another goal resulting in a 2-0 win.
“As a winger, I think I did pretty good in the last 15 minutes and when I scored my goal. That was my goal for the game, to get into the game and score. My goal for the season is to be a top goal scorer,” Alfred said.
The Kits look to finish the Evanston Tournament strong with a win against Payton College Prep who beat Jones in the first round. They will play their final tournament game on Saturday afternoon.
“We slid out of here with a 2-0 win. We missed a lot of chances, and we’re not worried yet, we don’t want to be peaking right now, but that was still a lot of goals we missed in the last two games. So we have something to work on,” Calixte commented. “I just want to be improving every game and peak at the right time during the playoffs.”
